


Courting

by Lynx22281



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Gardening, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Mostly Human Castiel, courting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1406422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynx22281/pseuds/Lynx22281
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with a four-leaf clover and ends with something Dean never let himself hope to have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Courting

It started with a four-leaf clover that appeared on the keyboard of Dean’s laptop.  He didn’t think too much of it to begin with, but carefully stuck it between two pages of his dad’s journal to keep it safe.  He’d take all the luck he could get, even if they weren’t dealing with angels and demons anymore now that Heaven had been restored and Hell had been shut tight.

 

That night, he found his skull bead bracelet fixed and whole again, waiting on his nightstand before he went to bed.  His nervous habit of tugging and pulling at it finally caused the elastic to snap several years ago.  He had managed to find all of the hand carved wooden and bone beads scattered over the stained carpet of the motel he and Sam were staying in at the time and tossed them into the cigar box where they kept their fake IDs, but never got around to restringing the bracelet.

 

The next afternoon, there was a long iridescent raven feather lying on the library table next to the box of Men of Letters membership records that he’d been going through before stopping to make lunch. 

 

The day after that, he found a handful of smooth gray pebbles in the soap dish of his shower stall.

 

The next morning, a single Blue Morpho butterfly wing was waiting for him on top of the coffee maker in the kitchen.

 

By the end of the week, Dean had quite the collection of little odds and ends: an old arrowhead, a 1914 Lincoln Wheat Penny, a button made of brass and another made of smooth polished horn, and a small cloudy glass bottle with the words _Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root Kidney Cure_ written in raised letters on one side. The latest addition was a tiny white porcelain Scottie dog with chipped ears that had been sitting on top of his upturned coffee mug that morning.

 

He was leaning against the kitchen counter, rolling the antique ceramic toy between his thumb and forefinger while blearily waiting for the coffee pot to fill up when a sleep rumpled Sam walked in.

 

“Mornin’,” Sam said, scratching the back of his head and yawning.

 

“Hey,” Dean replied, distractedly as he studied his newest treasure.  It had been carefully wiped clean, but had obviously been buried in the dirt somewhere for a very long time as evidenced by the grime cemented in the fine divots of the dog’s coat.

 

"What’s that?” Sam asked as he pulled the box of Shredded Wheat from the cupboard.

 

Dean held up the little dog for him to see. 

 

“Where’d that come from?”  Sam ripped open one of the packets in the box, dumping the hard lump of cereal in the middle of a bowl where it landed with a dull thud.

 

Dean shrugged as the coffee gurgled loudly, the last of the water filtering through the grounds.  “Cas, I guess.  Unless we’ve got another ghost on our hands.”

 

“Huh,” Sam said, pulling the milk out of the fridge.

 

“He left any crap for you?”  Dean set the dog carefully on the counter, safely away from the edge and away from the sink, before pouring himself a stout cup of Joe.  He suspected that Cas was collecting trinkets in his explorations of the bunker and the grounds, though Dean wasn’t sure why Cas was leaving the stuff in obvious places for him to find.

 

“Ah, no.  Nope.”  He shook his head, long hair batting against his temples as he poured milk over his cereal. 

 

Dean glanced up to catch the little smirk twitching at the corner of his brother’s mouth as he turned to put the milk back in the fridge.  He rolled his eyes at the back of Sam’s head.

 

“Have you seen Cas this morning?” Sam asked as he grabbed his bowl from the counter and took it to the table, folding himself awkwardly on to one of the low stools attached to the floor.

 

“Haven’t seen him in a few days.”  It should be concerning, but the little gifts left lying around the bunker seemed to be Castiel’s way of reassuring Dean that he was still around and was ok. 

 

After Metatron had been ousted and order was restored to Heaven, Cas had chosen to remain on Earth, though his followers had tried to convince him to return to the Host.  His Grace had been tainted by Metatron’s spell, severely diminishing his power.  The other angels believed there was a way to restore Cas to the badass Seraph he had once been, but he had refused their offer.  He wasn’t completely fallen, but he was more human than angel now.

 

Dean couldn’t believe Cas had willingly chosen humanity over Heaven, but he was relieved he hadn’t lost one of the most important people in his life.  Again. 

 

The only thing Cas had asked for was a place to stay and some time to himself, which the Winchesters had been all too happy to grant him.  Dean could probably count the number of times he’d seen Castiel over the last month on one hand.  They’d exchanged only a few words during those brief encounters, mostly Dean making sure Cas had whatever he needed (a toothbrush, clean underwear, a sandwich, a sweater) or Cas asking where something was (laundry detergent, an extra pillow and blanket for his bed, a shovel, a hand saw). 

 

“Have you seen him lately?” Dean asked over the rim of his coffee cup when Sam didn’t seem too concerned about his lack of Cas sightings in recent days.

 

“Yeah,” he replied nonchalantly chewing his cereal.

 

Dean frowned.  He wouldn’t admit it to his brother, but he had searched high and low trying to find Cas’s hiding place over the past couple of days and couldn’t find him.  If it wasn’t for the slight wrinkle in the top cover of Cas’s bed that moved every day (he hadn’t quite mastered the military precision bed making skills that the Winchester brothers had had drilled into them from an early age), then Dean would have suspected that the other man wasn’t even returning to his room at some point in the day.  At the very least, he wanted to make sure his best friend was taking care of himself, not staring off into space sporting a full on mountain man beard that was home to a mouse or two. 

 

Sighing, Dean gave Sam an aggravated look.  “And is he ok?”

 

“Yeah, he’s just working on a project.”

 

“A project?”

 

Sam nodded.  “Yep.  A project.”

 

“Care to share with the rest of class?”

 

Sam slurped up the milky dregs of his breakfast and shrugged.  “He said it was a secret.”

 

“Right,” he said flatly, eyes narrowing at his brother though Sam’s face was hidden behind his upturned bowl.

 

Nothing irked him more than secrets.  Dean had thought that by now they’d all learned their lesson about keeping things from each other.  Annoyed, he set his mug on the counter, not bothering to rinse it out.  He grabbed the little dog squeezing it tightly into the palm of his hand until the jagged points of its chipped ears dug into his skin as he headed to his room to scoop up all the little knickknacks that Cas had left him over the last week.  He tossed them into a box and stormed out into the hallway on a mission to find the former angel.

 

He had no idea where to start other than to track down his brother and demand to know where Cas was hiding, but as he entered the library, he spied the dark haired man scurrying down the corridor leading towards the garage.  There was a silver St. Christopher medal, worn almost smooth with age, on the pile of cookbooks sitting on the library table that Dean had dug out from a box in the pantry the night before.  He added the medal to the box of junk and headed after Cas.

 

The side door of the garage was chocked open with a wooden block.  Dean vaguely remembered the door leading out onto an enclosed courtyard.  He hadn’t paid it much attention in his first round of exploring all the wonders of the garage because from what he had been able to see of it, it wasn’t much more than a trash pit – weeds growing up through broken cement pavers, a pile of rusted gardening tools, a couple of ancient bicycles propped up against one wall with rotted tires hanging off their rims,  discarded gas canisters that had housed who knows what (he had taken the time to make sure they were all empty and didn’t pose a threat of blowing up the place), a broken water fountain overflowing with fetid rainwater and dead leaves.

 

Curious as to why Cas was interested in the place, he snuck up to the door and peeked out.  The sight that greeted him was vastly different from the first and only time he’d set eyes on the space.

 

The courtyard was completely bare.  All of the trash was gone.  The creeping vines had been pulled down to expose the bare brick and mortar walls.  The weeds had been pulled from the ground and the pavers swept clean of dirt, revealing purposely defined walkways between patches of bare Earth. 

 

The only thing out of place in the otherwise empty area was a messy tangle of bent branches that sat on top of an old metal platform in the far corner of the courtyard like a giant, unfinished bird’s nest.

 

Dean’s anger and apprehension over what he might find bled away.  He glanced down at the box in his hand, full of the things Cas had apparently found while he was cleaning.  Loosening his grip on the box, he began to back away, but ended up backing into the counter that ran along the wall, ramming his elbow into the sharp corner.  He couldn’t help the (manly) yelp of pain forced out of his mouth when a jolt of electricity shot through the nerves in his arm.

“Hello, Dean,” came a familiar voice directly behind him.

 

Dean rubbed his injured elbow with his free hand and turned to face Cas.  “Uh, hey, man.  I was…um…looking for you.”

 

“I had to ‘ _take a_ _leak_ ’,” he said curling his fingers into air quotes at face level before dropping them back down to his sides.

 

It was weird seeing Cas in something other than his Holy Tax Accountant get up, but he looked loose and comfortable in his dirt streaked jeans, plain white t-shirt, old gray flannel button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and bare feet.   He definitely looked more like a run-of-the-mill, average guy than a kickass warrior of God.  The way his t-shirt hugged his chest and the way his tanned forearms stuck out from the cuffs of his sleeves still hinted at something divine.

 

“Did you need something?” Cas asked warily when Dean didn’t say anything.

 

Dean had to swallow against his suddenly dry throat before he could respond.  “Uh, no.  Just wanted to…ya know…check on you since I hadn’t seen you in days.  Wanted to um…make sure you hadn’t gotten lost somewhere in one of the back corridors.  Hell, I still get turned around when I wander too far past the living quarters.  Need a ball of twine or something to find my way back to a familiar hallway.”

 

He stopped when he realized he was rambling.

 

“I’m okay, Dean.”

 

“Good, good.”  Dean nodded, letting go of his elbow to point his thumb back over his shoulder to the open door.  “Whatcha doin’ in there?”

 

Castiel deflated, looking suddenly ashamed.  “It used to be a garden.  I found it and asked Sam if I could have it.  He said it’d be ok.  I wanted it to be a surprise.  I wasn’t trying to deceive you.”

 

“Is that where all of this stuff came from?”  Dean held out the box.

 

“Most of it,” he replied with a short nod.  “Sam gave me the beads to your bracelet.”

 

“Why?”

 

Castiel tilted his head in confusion, eyes squinted just slightly.

 

Dean ran his hand down his chin before clarifying.  “Why all the little presents?”

 

He lifted blue eyes heavenward and took a deep breath. “Now that I’ve left Heaven, I can properly…,” he paused with a sigh before pressing forward, though he looked like he really wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole, “properly court you.”

 

Dean blinked, his gaze falling to where Cas was worrying his lower lip between his teeth. 

 

“An angel presents tokens of affection to their intended while preparing a place in The Garden to bring their mate after the bonding ritual has been conducted,” he explained softly as he traced his bare big toe along a crack in the concrete floor.  “I know I’m not much of an angel anymore and I know this isn’t how humans go about dating and getting engaged.  I guess you could say it’s a tradition for my family, part of my heritage.  The garden, it’s not much to look at now.  It’s not finished.  I had planned to keep it a secret a little longer.”

 

“I don’t like secrets,” Dean interrupted automatically, mentally kicking himself at the way Cas cast his eyes down to the floor like a scolded toddler.

 

“I know.  That’s why I’m telling you now.  I was scared to tell you, scared that you’d…”

 

Dean cut Cas off by crossing the foot and a half of space between them and pressing his lips firmly against the former angel’s, sucking his worry-swollen lower lip ever so gently between his teeth.   He slid one arm around Cas’s waist, pulling him close while still holding the box of treasures in his other hand.  The kiss lasted until Cas broke away, gasping for breath because he forgot that his vessel was now his own body and his body required oxygen to live.  They stayed locked together, eyes closed, chest to chest, forehead to forehead, soaking up each other like flowers soaking up the sun after a particularly dreary week without it.

 

“So, may I continue to court you?” Cas breathed quietly against Dean’s lips.

 

Dean pecked affectionately at the corner of Cas’s mouth.  “Yes, you can continue to court me.”

 

“Even though Sam will tease you about it?” 

 

Dean opened his eyes, catching the mischievous sparkle in the blue-eyes looking back him.  He gave a long-suffering sigh, but nodded.  “Even though Sam will tease _us both_ about it.”

 

“Good.  But you can’t come into the garden until it’s finished.”

 

“Promise you’ll come out at least once a day to do something with me.”  Dean couldn’t find it in him to care how needy that sounded.  He needed Cas close, goddammit, and he was going to make sure Cas knew it. 

 

“I promise,” Cas said solemnly. 

 

Dean leaned back and smiled at his angel.  “I’ll let you get back to work.  I’m making burgers for dinner tonight.”

 

“I’ll be there.”  Smiling, Cas pressed a soft kiss to the stubble of Dean’s jaw before heading back into the garden.

 

*****

 

By the end of April, the courtyard garden had erupted in a riot of rich color and pleasing textures.  There were rows of dark red tulips, bright yellow daffodils, and deep purple hyacinths in between the brick walkways and around the pool of the three-tiered water fountain in the middle of the square.  Delicately pruned, ankle-high boxwood hedges marked the boundaries of the flower beds.  Four tall cherry trees showered the ground with pale pink blossoms whenever the breeze kicked up.  In the places not planted with flowers, soft green grass beckoned to be run through with bare feet.  A small collection of knockout rose bushes took up the western corner of the square, while directly across in the opposite corner, a set of antique wrought iron patio furniture was arranged around a fire pit.

 

The weird pile of sticks in the southern corner of the courtyard that Dean had guessed to be some sort of post-modern angelic art actually turned out to be a den-like nest – a rather cozy one complete with a full-sized mattress, dozens of pillows, and a down comforter inside.  Together he and Cas had decorated the walls and ceiling of the nest with the courting gifts Cas had given him over the last several weeks.

 

Dean had been speechless when Cas finally brought him into the garden after it was finished and the first buds were just beginning to open up.  Cas had explained that he had had the rare opportunity to apprentice under Joshua in The Garden many millennia ago during a lull between holy wars and had, at one time, been tapped to be the older angel’s successor as The Garden’s caretaker, but the path to that future changed the instant he had been chosen to rescue Dean from Perdition.  He had found that his weakened Grace was still strong enough to coax the flowers and shrubs to grow a little faster and a little better than if left alone to nature’s whims.  Cas’s efforts in the garden left him pleasantly exhausted at the end of each day when he collapsed into bed with Dean and his spirit felt more at ease than it had over the whole of his existence.

 

On the last Thursday of the month, Dean and Cas found themselves in the middle of the courtyard with Sam and Jody to their left and Charlie and Dorothy on their right.  Ms. Tran stood before them with Kevin smiling at them over his mom’s shoulder.  Everybody stood barefoot on one of the large patches of cool grass.

 

Vows of love, loyalty, family, and devotion were made, and as Dean and Cas kissed to seal their promises to each other a flock of doves flew past in the square of blue sky overhead.

 

After a barbeque of epic proportions, the others wandered back into the bunker for the night leaving the newly bonded couple alone in the garden.  Cas led Dean to the nest where he stripped the hunter out of his jeans and white dress shirt and proceeded to worship every inch of his body with his fingertips and bless every scar with his lips. Hours later, when they were finally sated from loving each other, they curled up in a tangle of arms and legs under the comforter to watch the fireflies dance across the garden.

 

Smiling softly, Dean squeezed Cas’s hand.  “Hey.”

 

Cas smiled up at him.  “Are you sure you want to spend forever with me?”

 

Dean lifted their clasped hands and brushed his lips over the heavy silver ring on Cas’s finger.  “Never been more sure of anything else in my entire life.” 

 

“Good,” Cas sighed across Dean’s chest, over his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> The flock of doves flying overhead at the end of the ceremony represents the souls of those they've lost over the years.
> 
> The little ceramic dog is based off of this: <http://nephilimsgrace.tumblr.com/post/82628241720/this-is-the-little-ceramic-dog-that-cas-gave-to>
> 
> The nest is based off of this: <http://nephilimsgrace.tumblr.com/post/80638066766>


End file.
